Mayor`s Choice For Mccormick

October 31, 1985|By Daniel Egler and John McCarron, Chicago Tribune. Contributing to this story was Tim Franklin.

SPRINGFIELD — Mayor Harold Washington has chosen prominent Chicago accounting executive James Brice as his candidate to head the new governing board at McCormick Place, legislative sources said Wednesday.

But it remained unclear whether the floating of Brice`s name to head the board would break the deadlock between the mayor and Gov. James Thompson over board control.

Key GOP senators hinted they will not support a bailout of the incompleted McCormick Place annex unless Democrats support a package of tax breaks to help rebuild the fire-damaged Arlington Park Race Track.

While jockeying continued in anticipation of a Thursday vote on the $60 million McCormick bailout, the Senate approved a compromise $66 million farm- aid plan.

In addition, the dim prospects for a cigarette tax increase, needed to help fund education reforms, brightened slightly as House Minority Leader Lee Daniels (R., Elmhurst) became the first legislative leader to endorse the higher levy.

On the McCormick Place issue, mayoral sources floated the name of Brice after Republicans chided Washington by saying he did not have a solid alternative to the governor`s choice, former Gov. Richard Ogilvie.

Brice is a senior partner with the accounting firm of Arthur Andersen Co. He also has been cochairman of Chicago United, an urban group made up of the city`s top corporate officers.

Asked about Brice, Thompson said late Wednesday that ``he`s a good guy, a good man.`` But he said the board`s makeup and composition are ``so far from settled, . . . it`s too soon for personalities.``

The mayor`s legislative team named five other candidates that Washington is prepared to place on a 12-member replacement board. They are Donald Peters, president of Teamsters Local 743; Robert Hallock, a Loop attorney; Addie Wyatt, vice president of the United Food and Commercial Workers union; Bernard Weisbourd, president of Metropolitan Structures, a real estate development firm; and Edward Gardner, president of Soft Sheen Products Inc., a cosmetics firm.

Except for Ogilvie, Thompson has not made public his choices for the slate of board appointees.

The makeup of the governing board is the last but highest hurdle facing a compromise to the McCormick Place board`s request for more funds to complete the annex.

Though a bipartisan committee of the House has recommended that the mayor and governor appoint an equal number of McCormick board members, Senate Republicans are insisting that Thompson be given a 4-3 majority on an interim board and a 7-5 majority on a permanent replacement board, which would be seated next October.

Giving Thompson a board majority is anathema to Chicago Democrats, especially to House Speaker Michael Madigan.

But a key Republican senator said Wednesday that his side will not back down unless Democrats agree to a package of tax incentives, including property tax abatement and a lowering of the parimutuel betting tax, to speed the rebuilding of Arlington Park, which was destoyed by fire.

-- The House joined the Senate in overriding the governor`s veto of a measure that would allow husbands to prevent their wives from getting an abortion in the last two trimesters of a pregnancy.

Some lawmakers argued that the legislation, overridden by only a one-vote majority, was unconstitutional.

-- Daniels emerged from a lengthy House Republican caucus and embraced the governor`s proposed 8-cent increase to the cigarette tax, now at 12 cents a package. He acknowledged that not all of his 51 members support the increase, but he said a majority agreed to back the controversial measure if the revenues are earmarked for the common school fund.

Despite Daniels` support, the measure faces an uphill fight. A spokesman for Madigan said a poll of his 67 members showed that only about a dozen favored acting on the cigarette tax this week.

-- The Senate passed 51-7 a $66 million farm-aid package that sponsors said could provide assistance to 20,000 of the state`s 90,000 farmers. Critics charged that the bill is not a bailout and may provide only minimal help for the state`s financially troubled farmers.

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Jerome Joyce (D., Reddick), would allow farmers with a debt-to-asset ratio of at least 55 percent to qualify for grants of as much as $2,000. The measure also includes $30 million to help farmers stay afloat by restructuring their debts. The bill moves to the House.